Jun 1, 2025
My fond recollections of Joseph Marcionette, who always insisted being called Joe, go back to 1952 when I was just about 5 years of age. Joe and my grandmother, Marguerite lived up on Farm Street in Medfield very close to the town of Dover. He was actually my step-grandfather, my father’s step-father. I happily remember Joe taking me and my older brother Todd, then 8 years old, to Lord’s Department Store. It was the old Lord’s before they made it into what the modernized store eventually became. As young children, Joe brought us up the isles where the toys were. While Joe would be talking to Ray Lord or Bill Kelly, he would buy each of us whatever toy we wanted.
Whenever my parents were going to return late from a night out at a concert, they would have Todd, my sister Deirdre and I stayed overnight at their home on Farm Street. That house was very spacious with a big spiral staircase and large bedrooms along with an elegant dining and living room. The house wasn’t actually “kid proof,” but it sure did have a fun and adventurous appeal. The kitchen was quite large and back then we would sometimes dine there for our Thanksgiving Day dinner. Of course Joe would always sit at the head of the table, while Marka, a nickname given to our grandmother, sat at the opposite end with my mom and dad seated to the right and left along with the kids. There was the aroma of the turkey with stuffing along with mashed potatoes and gravy with a vegetable like carrots, and string beans along with creamed onions. Cranberry sauce rounded out the meal with all the other fixings and our grandmother, Marka baked apple and pumpkin pies for dessert along with many glasses of milk.
The holiday dinner was always festive and joyful, and Joe was exuberant as ever. His enthusiasm was a great part of his personality and nature. Sometimes after a festive holiday dinner, Joe would often start a fire in the fireplace and we would all enjoy the times during the wintry holidays. Their back yard led directly to an enormous thicket of deep woods, mostly all pine trees. Joe stored firewood back there, having stacked it closely under a lean-to in back of the house.
Joe’s mother, who we all called Grammy, lived close by on North Street in a beautiful mansion with a great winding and scenic driveway that ended at the top of a grand hill. Joe was very devoted to her as well as to his brothers and sisters. Two of his sisters became very successful with recognition in their own right, Blanche Kingsbury and Marie “Toots” Burke.
At around 1954, Joe and Marka decided to sell their house on Farm Street and move into a new custom-made house down on Phillip Street. Todd and I remembered the day when the moving van came to the house on Farm Street and started putting all the furniture and valuables on the van. We got to ride on the back of the Mac truck, making several trips in all. It was a lot of fun holding onto the back of the chairs and sofas, as we would cling to them and gently sway on the back of them, dangling our feet in the air.
Finally, after everything was moved into the new home, Todd and I ate great bowls of ice cream and waited for our father to take us home to Pleasant Street. But not before we went out to the back of Joe and Marka’s new house and took in a solid stretch of pine forest that looked endless. Todd and I were about to enter that dark, green, and unknown world that was charged with a beautiful scent of pine, as well as way too many mosquitoes. Later on in the late summer we would often spend many an early evening out back shooting the BB gun/rifle Joe bought for us. We set up empty tin cans from a safe distance and then took turns firing away at them and into the thicket.
Todd and I would sometimes venture into the woods to see just how far back it went. What we came up with was plenty of more forest and pine trees all the time, along with many birds, rabbits, squirrels, and an occasional red fox. For the most part we scouted out different nooks and crannies where we could explore and on one occasion even caught a very friendly milk snake slithering by.
Joe Marcionette was the town selectman in the fifties and sixties and enjoyed the office and position immensely. He also owned and operated the Jenney Gas Station that used to be right across from the Congregational Church in the center of Medfield. The location was perfect for Joe, who loved being at the helm of what was going on in the center of town and Medfield Town Hall. Joe had his flamboyant routine where he took a personal interest in his customers who drove into his station, and even pumped the gas himself. In those days gas was cheap, just 26 cents a gallon and most of the business was derived from the work that was done by the mechanics.
In the mid-fifties, Joe bought a boxer puppy, and because his gas station was the “Jenney Station,” he decided to call the pup, Jenney. She was a healthy and darling puppy and Joe made sure she had all her shots. Soon afterward she had her ears cropped and tail cut as that was the tradition back then. Jenney was a great companion, and such fun to play with whenever Todd and I went to visit Joe and Marka. Over time, Joe taught her many tricks that she would perform in front of everyone either at home or at the gas station. He was very fond and proud of her and even had a regular routine with Jenney “speaking,” only in dog language of course.
Joe, as the town selectman, never missed the chance to stay in the public eye. On the Memorial Day in 1957, Joe was asked to throw out the first pitch of that new Little League season. He was very dapper, all dressed up in a light gray suit with a neck tie and a fresh new white dress shirt and shined shoes. We all remembered the way he threw the ball. It was smooth, clean and straight down the middle. No fast ball necessary. It wasn’t a perfect strike but Joe got the job done and had a gift for making things look easy, for such a big man with a heady persona.
The Jenney Gas Station employed a fine cast of characters who worked as mechanics. One of the very best happened to be a guy named Jimmy LaCourt. He was probably the most skilled and knowledgeable mechanic who ever worked at the station. He was also one of the first people back then who drove a brand new red Volvo, the foreign make that car dealers were just beginning to sell back then. Of course, Jimmy liked the car and was proud to show it off to anyone. Not many people in the early sixties knew what a Volvo looked like other than the fact that its design was unique. At the garage, Jimmy worked alongside another local young man named Bobbie Antosh, and the two worked diligently in the business everyday as their work became very reputable.
Additionally, over those early years, Joe hired a very colorful bunch of young mechanics. They knew their business and were very hardworking. Roy Colbert worked mainly the late afternoon and night shift at the station and could just about fix anything under the hood of a car. He was from North Carolina, complete with a great sounding southern drawl. Other Medfield teens who worked at the Jenny were local and lived close to Medfield center. They were Mario Iapoletti, Billy Reynolds, Charley Matarasso, and Paul Roach to name a few.
The Jenney Gas Station in those days was a place where people would gather after a bad snowstorm or hurricane. Quite often for no particular reason at all, devoted customers would talk about politics or the weather. Joe was always at the helm and forefront of it all, while ringing people up on the cash register when paying. If a customer was an old friend of his, he’d send out for coffee brewed at the McGuire Drug Store or even offered the man an Overland Launder, Joe’s personal favorite cigar brand.
Two very unique and colorful characters who had car work done at the station were the McKay twins, Harold and Leslie. They lived on Curve Street, right after the railroad bridge on the left side, well before reaching Spring Street, route 27. No matter what the weather was, the twins Harold and Leslie always dressed alike in plaids, stripes or solid colors, complete with identical shoes and flat golf hats that matched. They were inseparable and not only looked alike but dressed alike as well, never veering in fashion and from what people expected. They easily reminded people of the twins from the story, “Alice in Wonderland,” and when on site, gave the Jenny gas station a feeling of authenticity.
Joe enjoyed the holiday season very much and would often dress up as Santa Claus in December, in the weeks before Christmas morning. He had the red Santa suit, complete with white hair, beard and mustache, jingle bells, boots, white winter gloves and bag full of toys that he gave out whether appearing at the Medfield Town Hall, Lords, the Memorial Elementary School or Wills Hardware. Joe cared about all those children and never missed an opportunity to dress up as Santa Claus and extend his generosity, good cheer and kindness.
That kindness, concern and generosity were always an important part of Joe’s life. In 1960 there were several teenagers from Medfield who were badly injured in a car accident. One of those teens was Johnny Horgan whose family lived on North Street across the street from Bullard’s Market. Joe was a good friend of the Horgan family and knew Johnny very well as he had worked at the gas station. With Johnny on the mend and feeling better and stronger every day, Joe invited him along with me, Billy McCardy and Jimmy LaCourt to have Chinese food out on Route One in Norwood. At that point in time, the China Pearl was a popular restaurant out on the auto mile. Joe treated us all to a complete dinner along with tea, plenty of appetizers like spare ribs, poo poo platters, chop suey, chow mien, lo mien, steak tips, pork strips, chicken wings and white or pork fried rice. For dessert, we had pineapple chunks to finish along with the fortune cookies. The food was spectacular and Johnny Horgan and the rest of us even left with some of the food “to go.” What made the experience so wonderful was that it was the first time Johnny and I ever had Asian food, all compliments of Joe Marcionette.
Telling about the life and times of Joe Marcionette would include his relationship with the Sabrowski family. They lived at the corner of Nebo and Phillip Streets. Addie Sabrowski, the father and head of the household was from Russia and earlier in the late 1940’s had escaped Stalin’s gulag. His wife was Elizabeth, who preferred to be called Liz or Lizzie for short. They had two sons, the older of the two was Johnny and the younger was Tommie. They helped their father work on the farm, out in the fields with plowing in the spring and then in the summer harvesting the cornucopia of vegetables from the many tomato plants as well as fresh corn, green beans, peppers and carrots.
They would also cut the hay in the fields that was stored for the farm animals during the winter months. The hay lofts were on the top floor of a large red barn across the street from the Sabrowski home that housed two work horses named Bill and Charley, and five dairy cows that were milked every day. Up on a hill in back of their house was a historic wind mill that led to the nearby chicken coops that sheltered about two hundred Rhode Island Red chickens that were raised for their eggs and for an occasional dinner. Running a farm was hard work and took a good amount of physical strength and energy.
Tommie would sometimes help his father and brother, Johnny, by pulling up the weeds that grew around the corn and tomatoes. But his love and pastime was fishing out on Ms. Jewell’s pond that was located just in back of her beautiful, large and countrified white house. She was the owner of the entire estate, of what is now called the Red Gate Farm.
In the warm months, Ms. Jewell would often sit out on her screened in porch, chain smoking her non-filtered cigarettes, so determined to smoke every last bit of tobacco by placing a hat pin at the end of the cigarette. That way she was able to smoke each butt until there was nothing left but a scintilla of white rolling paper and tobacco. She was a very wealthy woman who liked her tobacco and was delighted that back in the fifties cigarettes were very inexpensive, just 25 cents a pack. She would often have her chauffeur drive her black limo into Medfield center and buy at least two cartons of Chesterfield cigarettes along with the rest of her groceries. Tommie used to say that Ms. Jewel didn’t just smoke cigarettes, she “lived off” them. As she was a two pack a day smoker, who could ever argue over Tommie’s insightful assessment that was surprisingly accurate?
Joe liked good wholesome food and believed in the saying by President Roosevelt that all Americans should have “a chicken in every pot.” He believed that everyone should be able to put good food on their dinner tables. He grew up during the depression when times were tough and that expression had great personal meaning to him. Living up to that expectation, Joe had a tradition of getting up early every Friday morning at 4 am and going to the North End and Haymarket Square to buy many loafs of Italian bread and flowers. Much to our surprise, we found out that Joe was a restaurateur as well. At least, that’s what all the North End bakers thought, with Joe calling his imaginary eatery, “Joe’s Restaurant,” what else? He would then return to Medfield and then give the bread out to many of his friends and customers at the Jenney Gas Station, that was later called the Citgo Station. He also bought many flowers such as tulips, gladiolas and roses that he would put over at the gas station on display and sell, handling them with care in the summer months. There was no doubt about it, Joe had a “green thumb” and could have had a budding career in floriculture.
Joe’s reputation included many acts of charity. If you needed a favor, you could see Joe, and the favor could range from borrowing one of his cars from the gas station or to lending someone a twenty dollar bill. He could advise, supervise and systematize everything. Always smooth, clean, straight and down the middle.
In 1956 Joe took my brother Todd and I along with our sister Deirdre to a rodeo that was held at the old Boston Garden. The famous cowboy, Gene Autry, was at the rodeo and Joe took us down to the floor of the Garden to meet him. He was to become a favorite of many children as early television featured lots of westerns. We would fondly remember watching him on TV, singing the classic, “Cool Water.” We couldn’t resist hearing that song and then getting up from our chairs and going to the kitchen for a glass of cool water from the faucet during a commercial break.
During the late fifties, Joe started the “Light a Bike” campaign. He went to speak at the Medfield schools and promoted a bicycle safety program. It called for putting reflective and florescent silver and gold stickers on the front and rear of our bikes. It was especially helpful during dusk and at the night time when kids might have been riding their bikes home. The implementation of the program was a great success and the light stickers were put on the bikes of over four hundred kids at the Jenney Gas Station on a Saturday morning. Joe seemed to glide through the huge crowd of kids, always charismatic, enjoying every minute of that morning, forever the consummate politician.
Joe would drive and handle his car in a certain way. While I watched him drive I often noticed how he would drive with just one hand, with just his thumb and two fingers on the wheel. I quickly picked up his technique, and ended up making a lot of passengers very nervous! How could I control the car, driving at 60 miles an hour with just three fingers on the wheel? How does somebody get to Carnegie Hall? It takes practice, practice and more practice.
Joe loved politics and served as the town of Medfield selectman for thirty-five years, forever with his hand on the pulse of the town. He was like the energizer bunny and always on the go. He helped many a local political candidate achieve office and was involved as a pioneer in making Medfield what it is today. He was either helping to establish projects like the Jimmy Fund, the Medfield Little League or participating in the founding of the Medfield Swim Pond as well as many other enterprises that called for his support and devotion.
In Joe’s day, he would “let his fingers do the walking, and his mouth do the talking.” But unfortunately, his giant hands could never turn back the even bigger hands of time. Perhaps he never fully realized that he would one day run out of energy and face retirement.
But that day did come, whether Joe wanted it to or not. If you knew or were familiar with Joe Marcionette, you would have soon realized that the world was so much better with him in it. He had a soothing effect on people, encouraging a calmness over troubled waters and times, rendering a peaceful tranquility. He left an impact on this world of Medfield as if it was his shining Camelot.
In his own modesty, Joe Marcionette celebrated life and reminded us all that we are only as good as our next accomplishment. But here and now, the window of sunshine and history has revealed a crystal clear moment in time of a giant of a man who we will never forget and never stop thanking.